Ocean and Skies
by Darkwing-Kate
Summary: Will Benjamin and Lincoln Campbell are different, yet the same. Told mostly in drabbles. Contains spoilers for season two of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Hey, all. This has been stuck in my head ever since I saw Luke Mitchell show up in season two of "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." I felt like drabbles worked with the way I wanted to tell most of this story, but there are some expanded parts that are much more than 100 words. There are some spoilers for season two of "S.H.I.E.L.D", and there is some violent content.**

 **DISCLAIMER: I do not own "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D" or "H20: Just Add Water". They belong to people much richer than me.**

* * *

He still has nightmares.

He sees the orange tails, limp and lifeless. He sees the harpoons, glistening with blood. He sees her mouth open in a soundless scream-soundless because his brain cannot comprehend the sight in front of him.

Sometimes he gets there on time. Sometimes he holds her and thanks God that he saved her.

Those times are rare.

The majority of the time, he's too late, and all he can do is watch.

He'd always been told that imagination is more graphic than reality. He now knows that is a lie.

Reality is so, _so_ much worse.

* * *

Skye reminds him of Bella, but not because of how similar they are. It's because they're so different.

Bella was bright, with sunlight for hair and the ocean she so loved as eyes.

Skye is dark, intense, with roots in the earth she can now manipulate.

Bella had the voice of a siren in legends.

He's never heard Skye sing.

Bella had her gifts since she was a child.

Skye, with her new gifts, was like a child—afraid of them.

He loved Bella.

He likes Skye.

He couldn't help Bella.

He _will_ help Skye.

But she is **not** Bella.

* * *

 _Maybe this was meant to be_ , he thinks, watching the sunset over the valley.

Water and electricity didn't mix, right?

 _Why would they?_ Lincoln wonders.

Will hides his presence.

Being an Inhuman was a destiny he inherited without prelude. He couldn't have known.

 _Known what?_ Lincoln asks himself.

Will hides even deeper.

Lincoln allows himself to relish his gifts. He zaps a boulder and watches, satisfied, as it tumbles down the gorge.

"Hey," a voice says.

He turns and sees Skye. "Hey," he replies.

"Whatcha thinking about?" she asks.

He forces a smile. "Just…thinking."

She sits down next to him.

"Do you believe in mermaids?" he suddenly asks one day.

Skye looks at him and laughs. "Sure, along with fairies and the boogyman."

He says nothing. She looks at him with curiosity.

"Do _you_?" she asks.

He looks at the clouds. "Maybe," he replies. "Why not? Aliens are real. Why couldn't mermaids be?"

Skye shrugs. "I guess?" she says hesitantly. There's a pause. "It would be pretty neat to meet one," she finally admits.

"Yeah," he agrees.

Another long pause.

"You okay, Lincoln?" she asks, looking at him with those dark eyes.

"Yeah," he lies.

She doesn't ask him again.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: The first part of this chapter takes place after the episode "The Dirty Half Dozen" and during "Scars". There's only two drabbles here because the next chapter will be long.**

* * *

He should be dead.

He'd known he would die under Hydra's care. Jiaying would never send anyone for him; it was too risky. This he understood.

And besides, if he died, he'd be with Bella.

He _was_ dead, if for a moment. A moment that felt like forever. He knew he was dead because he saw her.

Bella, with her sunlight hair and ocean eyes.

She smiled at him. He held out a hand to touch her. She sidestepped it, still smiling. "Not yet," she said in her melodic voice.

"Why?" he asked.

"Not yet."

 **THUMP**. His heart quakes.

 _Skye._

* * *

 _An orange tail, gliding through the water._

 _A hand loading a harpoon._

" _NO!" someone screams._

 _Blue water, now red. A line of silver in the orange._

 _There's a sound, a raw sound, and he doesn't know where it's coming from but he hates it because it sounds so lost._

"Lincoln, wake up!" a familiar voice shouts at him.

 _Blood, water, harpoon, tail. Red, blue, silver, orange._

"Lincoln!"

Something—or someone—shakes him awake.

The sound continues as he opens his eyes, and he realizes it's him, screaming.

Skye is holding him, worried. He probably looks awful.

"What happened?" she demands.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Here's a long chapter. Enjoy. Also, I forgot to put a disclaimer in the last chapter, so this disclaimer applies to it, too. I, alas, do not own any of the characters or shows.**

* * *

It was a normal day. Bright, sunny, not a cloud to be seen. Bella wanted to go swimming. "It's too beautiful to waste inside!" she said. He agreed with her.

They'd gone to Mako and swam. He left before her, since she could easily catch up with her tail. They waved their temporary goodbyes and promised to meet for lunch at the café.

He was anchoring the boat to the dock when he heard someone shout, "Did you _see_ that?"

His heart skipped a beat. Somehow, instinctively, he knew what the man had seen.

"It's a helluva huge fish!"

He looked up and saw three men, standing around in their boat, armed with fishing nets and rods.

 _Swim, Bella, swim._

"I think it's stuck!" one of the men shouted gleefully.

He tried to leap out of the boat, but his foot was tangled in the rope. He shook it off, cursing and praying that he could be fast enough.

He looked up in time to see her tail come up out of the water.

 _Too late._

Adrenaline surged through his body, propelling him off the boat and onto the dock.

"HEY!" he shouted, trying to distract them.

One of the men bent down and came up with a loaded harpoon gun.

 _Too late_.

" **HEY**!" He charged the man, not caring if he was making a scene. He managed to register Rikki and Cleo shouting his name—when had they appeared? Then he only saw the hand aiming the gun towards Bella's tail. Time seemed to slow. Everything looked too sharp, too detailed, as the harpoon shot towards the tail right as it sunk back into the water. For a moment, he dared to hope that she'd moved fast enough, that it had missed her by millimeters.

Then he heard a shriek that echoed all around him, and he knew that the man's aim had been true.

Water erupted from everywhere—was it Cleo's doing? Jets of water leapt into the air, smashing into the men and knocking them overboard. The wind went from nearly nonexistent to severe. The sky darkened into a storm. Lightning raced across it, illuminating the docks but leaving everything else in pitch black. He was screaming and still running, then he was diving into the water because maybe, maybe, she was just hurt. Maybe she was still alive.

Rikki and Cleo might have dove in after him, but he really didn't know, because he could only focus on Bella.

 _Bella, why didn't you swim away?_

Somehow he could see through the blue water. The water matched her eyes. Why hadn't he noticed that before? It was like she was meant for the ocean. Except the water wasn't blue around her, it was dark red, which didn't match her at all. She was still alive, frantically trying to pull the harpoon out, but she couldn't, and it only made more wisps of blood. He saw that she was pale, which looked so wrong on his Bella because his Bella had beautiful, bronze skin. She looked at him, agony reflected in her eyes, which weren't as blue as normal, or was he going crazy?

He swam to her, grabbing the harpoon as soon as he was within reach. He pulled and pulled and pulled because he was not going to lose her, he was _not_ , and then it came free but there was too much blood, way too much blood.

Lightning lit up the ocean. He could see that she was dying and he was powerless. The water around her pulsated with a frantic energy, almost like it was trying to save her but didn't know how. Bubbles floated around the two of them. He wanted to stay with her but he needed air, his lungs were burning.

 _I can't leave her!_

He refused to leave her. He refused to let her ( _die_ ) alone.

He grabbed her hand. His lungs couldn't stay much longer, but he would not, _could not_ , leave her. He held her hand tightly, which was normally so warm and soft but was now getting cold, which didn't make sense to him because he couldn't accept that she was dying. They locked eyes, him praying and pleading, her knowing there was nothing to be done. He saw her love, radiating even as her eyes dimmed. She no longer looked afraid, just sad.

By the next lightning flash, Bella Hartley was dead.

Something snapped in him. He pulled her body into his arms and swam upwards, using all of his strength. When he finally broke the surface of the water, he saw Rikki and Cleo, somehow not mermaids even with the water all around them. Their hands were raised towards the boat of the fishermen. They appeared as if in a trance, with their hair whipping about in the wind and eyes full of anger. Together they lifted their hands, and the boat exploded. The fishermen were nowhere to be seen.

He treaded water, still holding Bella's body, and watched as they destroyed every single boat in the dock. The lightning exploded around them, completely under their command, or were they under its command? It was odd, then, that the water around him and the body was calm, despite everything happening. He didn't even notice it at first, but when he did, he couldn't _not_ notice it. He swam forward, towards the dock, and somehow managed to lift Bella's body onto it before pulling himself up. He glanced at the girls but couldn't keep his eyes off of Bella.

 _Bella, Bella, why didn't you swim away?_

She was so pale now. People always said there was beauty in death, but he couldn't see it. She didn't look beautiful at all, with the blood and the paleness and her tail now a dull, pastel orange. Her eyes were closed, her damp hair clumped together, her mouth slightly open in its final expression.

Will wept for her.

He didn't know how long he kneeled there, cradling her corpse and crying. He did so and ignored the happenings around him—they no longer mattered. He cried until there was a shift in the air around him, although he didn't pay much attention to it until a hand touched his shoulder. He jerked away from it, but it managed to catch his attention. He looked away from Bella and into the soft eyes of an Asian woman. He opened his mouth to tell her to go away, fuck off for all he cared, but something in her brown eyes stopped him.

Understanding.

He saw that she understood what he was going through. She knew exactly what he felt.

"Come with me," she said in a soft yet strong voice.

He saw that a man was with her, a man with no eyes. His forehead stretched over where they should've been, but he was smiling at him like he could see Will.

"Come with me, and I promise, you'll be safe."

 _Safe from who?_

He glanced at Bella's—no, _the_ —body. He delicately untied the necklace she always wore, clenching it in his fist after doing so. Then he gently set her down. Her secret no longer mattered. She was dead because of it. Let the world see that mermaids existed. He didn't care anymore.

"My name is Jiaying. This is Gordon. We're here to help," the woman—Jiaying—explained, "but we need to go now."

Will tore his eyes away from the dead mermaid. "Why?" he asked, amazed that he could even make himself talk.

Jiaying tilted her head at him curiously. "Because you're special. You don't belong here." She waved her hands around them, indicating the storm that still writhed. "You belong with us, away from this. Away from _humans_."

Something about the way she said _humans_ stuck in his head, like she wasn't one. Which didn't make sense, except he'd seen for himself that mermaids were real. "Okay," he agreed. Why not? Nothing else mattered. Bella was dead.

Gordon wrapped his arms around the both of them. Will caught a glimpse of Cleo and Rikki, still wreaking havoc upon the small town. They turned just in time for him to see their expressions: hurt, sorrow, wrath, and was that pity or confusion?

Whatever the last emotion was, it didn't matter, because the air shifted and he was in blackness for less than a millisecond. Then he was inside a room furnished with a bed, dressers, a desk, all the niceties. "Welcome to Afterlife," he heard Jiaying say.

Thus his life as an Inhuman began.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: I don't own "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D" or "H2O: Just Add Water". If I did, I would shamelessly cast myself just so I could be a mermaid.**

It was Jiaying's idea to change his identity. The past hurt too much. There was no way Will of Australia could move on from what he'd witnessed, so he became Lincoln of Cincinnati. He learned an American accent and memorized a fake backstory. From there, he could accept himself as an Inhuman, because Lincoln of Cincinnati was ignorant. Lincoln of Cincinnati wouldn't regret his gifts, because Lincoln of Cincinnati wouldn't have failed to save the girl he loved.

The knowledge that if everything had happened sooner or later, Bella would still be alive, would kill Will.

It couldn't hurt Lincoln.

* * *

He only asked Jiaying what happened to the other girls twice. Once, before he allowed himself to become Lincoln. "We handled it," was her reply.

The second and final time was before he went through the mist. This time, Jiaying explained it all. She explained how the two mermaids had nearly wiped out the small coastal town before vanishing, likely into the ocean, and haven't been seen since.

Will wanted to mourn Sophie, but Lincoln didn't have a sister. His family was the whole of Afterlife. Will went into the mist, but Lincoln was the one who emerged from it.

* * *

Lincoln was fairly happy after going through the mist. Will only broke through once, when he discovered that his gift was the ability to manipulate electricity. He nearly destroyed Afterlife that day, when his feelings of failure and grief mixed with the new abilities. He knew that if he'd gone through the mist sooner, he could've saved Bella. He could've saved her and they'd be happy together.

Someone knocked him out, and when he woke, Lincoln was back. He knew that he'd almost accidentally burned the place down but he thought it was because he needed to master his power.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: This could technically be the ending. However, I have an epilogue (or three, because my brain couldn't settle on one). Enjoy.**

 **Disclaimer: I own none of these characters.**

* * *

When Will finishes his story, he's crying. He hates it, but it's been so long since he's thought about everything this much.

Skye puts her hand on his shoulder. "Lincoln, I'm so sorry," she says softly. "I can't imagine what that must've been like."

"No, you can't," he replies, a bit too harshly. She flinches, and he immediately regrets his words.

They sit in silence. Skye keeps her hand on him, which he secretly appreciates. It helps, even if only a little. Eventually, he stops crying.

"Will you tell me more about her someday?"

He stares at the wall. "Maybe."

* * *

He does end up telling her. He tells her everything. About how he went to Mako that first night and was attacked by the water. About his friendship with Bella, and learning her secret. About learning the other girls were mermaids, too. About Sophie and how much she hated Bella, and about Zane. About how beautiful all the girls were, and about how they saved the country, nearly dying in the process.

He holds nothing back. Somehow, he feels better afterwards, like a weight has been lifted from his shoulders. He knows she'll keep it between the two of them.

* * *

Will is finally at peace. He no longer grapples with Lincoln—it's no longer necessary. They are the same, although he maintains his background story to S.H.I.E.L.D. He knows he needs to protect Rikki and Cleo, if they're still out there.

Skye is always there for him, listening when he needs to talk about before Afterlife. He realizes he's falling for her, and he's okay with it. He will always love Bella, but she would want him to move on, so he is.

He still cries about her, but that's okay, too. The emotions won't destroy him anymore.

He's content.


	6. Epilogue A

**A/N: Here's an epilogue. I do not own any of the characters in here (and there are a few more than we've seen before). Anyone want to guess where I got the baddies from?**

* * *

 **A**

Years later, he's on a mission for C.A.T.E.R.P.I.L.L.A.R.S. He's with a few other gifted individuals, Skye included. Everything is going according to plan for once. He and Skye are sitting at a café in Port Douglas, him drinking a smoothie and her drinking juice. He's laughing at something she said, something along the lines of "I thought kangaroos were everywhere here", when he sees a girl with blonde hair in two pigtail braids. She's wearing khaki shorts and a red tank top, and something about her seems so familiar. Then she turns, and he freezes at the sight of Rikki Chadwick.

Skye notices his reaction and grabs his hand. "What?" she asks, looking around first to make sure there weren't any threats, then at him. "What is it?"

In a low voice, he replies, "Do you see that girl, sitting at the table, with the green smoothie?"

Skye nonchalantly glances at her. "Yeah."

Without taking his eyes off the girl, he answers, "That's Rikki."

He dares to look at Skye to gauge her reaction. Her eyes widen, and she turns back to look at Rikki, this time not so calmly. "Rikki, as in the mermaid?" she whispers.

He nods.

"Do you think—," she begins, then stops.

"I don't know," he says, knowing her unasked question. Without another word, Skye stands up. "What are you doing?" he hisses.

She smiles at him in that mischievous way that he loves. "Be right back!" His mouth drops open as she saunters to Rikki and sits down at the same table.

"What the hell is she doing?" he mumbles to himself. He doesn't know whether to be confused or amused at her antics. As he watches, Skye engages Rikki in conversation easily. Before long, the two girls are laughing. Without warning, Skye suddenly spills her drink. Will freezes— _what the hell_ , _why would she do that?_ —but he's intrigued.

With a sense of déjà vu, he watches as Rikki jumps up, says something unintelligible over Skye's apologies, and runs towards the trees behind the beach. He makes eye contact with Skye, who smirks, not realizing what an unacceptable thing she's done, and then runs after Rikki. With a groan of exasperation, he follows. They run into a particularly dense area of trees, where no one else is, and he resists the urge to yell at her. Instead he glares, hoping that she'll understand the meaning behind it.

"What?" she asks, unperturbed.

"What the _hell_ were you thinking?" he demands, throwing his arms up.

"I was thinking you were gonna spend the rest of the mission wondering about her and being distracted, so I took a chance!" she shoots back.

He laughs sarcastically, dropping his arms. "Yeah, because this definitely isn't distracting at all!"

Skye throws her arms up. "You wanted to know!" Then she turns and goes deeper into the trees.

Will sighs and follows, knowing that she was right, to an extent. He _did_ want to know.

The two of them turn the corner around a huge boulder, and he gets his answer.

Rikki lays on the ground, her fist out and over her orange tail, smoke hissing as she tries to burn the moisture off. She looks up at them in fear at first, then recognition dawns across her face.

"Will?" she exclaims in disbelief.

Will doesn't know whether to be relieved that she remembers him or worried. He settles for a small wave. "Hey, Rikki," he says.

Skye stiffens for a moment, cocking her head a little, then faces Will. "I'll be back," she says, moving to leave.

Will knows that she's gotten the signal from the team. "I should go with you."

She shakes her head. "You want answers, so get them." She nods towards the mermaid. "We can do this without you." She allows herself a moment to consider Rikki before taking off.

"What was that about?" Rikki asks, glancing back and forth between Skye's retreating form and Will.

Will sighs and takes a seat on the ground across from her. "She's…a friend," he answers, unsure of how to respond. "We work together."

Rikki laughs. "She acts like a secret agent." Will doesn't respond in any way—he's schooled his facial expressions. Perhaps the lack of amusement is what alerts Rikki. "She is, isn't she?" the mermaid states. "And you are, too." It's not a question. Her tail finally vanishes, leaving two legs and khaki pants behind.

He neither confirms nor denies. Instead he sighs again. "Rikki," he begins slowly, "where's Cleo?" He can't bring himself to ask about that day, not yet.

Rikki frowns. "She's in America with Lewis. Has been for a while. Why?"

"What about Zane?"

Rikki's frown deepens. She doesn't reply for a while. Finally, "He's traipsing the world with some girl, I'd imagine." There was a hint of bitterness in her voice, mixed with the hollowness of a lie.

"Rikki," he warns. He recognizes that hollowness. He's heard himself speak with it too many times.

Rikki sighs and replies. Her voice sounds deeper, older. "He's dead," she whispers. "He died that day." They both know what day she's referring to.

Will scoots a little closer. "What happened?" he asks.

Rikki draws her knees up and hugs them. "Cleo and I were heading to the café. We heard the shouts and followed them. I saw the man with the harpoon, but I didn't see what he was aiming at. But we saw you, running to him, and we knew.

"We tried to use our powers, but it was too late. The moment the harpoon hit her, it was like the power of a hundred full moons on us, but the moons were _angry_. Normally we don't remember what happens if the full moon hits us, but I can remember every single detail of what I did that day. We were just so _angry_. Mako Island was angry, and the moons were angry, and then we lashed out." She takes a shuddering breath before continuing.

"I don't know _how_ we were able to destroy those boats, or make that storm, but we did. I remember everything looked red and very far away. I remember sending lightning towards the boats, but I didn't know I could make them explode like that. Cleo tossed the men into the ocean, and they never came up. It didn't matter that they were dead, though. We were angry, and everyone needed to feel the fury of Mako.

"We wiped out the town. I would see people screaming and running away, and then water would rush over them and they'd be gone. I zapped every building, car, object I could see. And it was weird because we were getting wet, but neither of us transformed.

"Zane tried to stop us. And I—," here she stops and chokes in some air. Will places an arm around her shoulder. Rikki takes a moment to angrily wipe her tears.

"When we were done, we returned to the dock. Bella's body was gone, and so were you. It was like something shattered inside of us, because all the rage, all the fury and vengeance, it just slipped out of us. We didn't know what to do. We'd just destroyed everyone we ever cared about!" Rikki's voice got steadily softer. "What could we do? We ran. We jumped into the water and swam to Mako. We stayed there for a while, but then people started investigating what had happened, so we left. We didn't go on land for at least a year.

"Cleo found out that her family had survived, only because they'd left for a trip that afternoon. She went back onshore after that, and they were all so happy. She finally ended up in America with Lewis, and I haven't seen her since.

"I've been going around for a while, between mermaid and human. It's faster to travel when you're underwater. And I can go places where no one knows who Rikki Chadwick is, or the horrible, horrible things she's done. At least, until today, when that girl dumped her drink on me." She glares pointedly at Will, who meets her glare evenly. "So what happened to you?"

Will tells her everything, about what happened that day and his life in Afterlife. He tells her about going through the mist, but before he can explain about his power, Skye's voice echoes across his earpiece.

"Lincoln, we need you, now!" She sounds frantic.

Will jumps to his feet. "I gotta go," he says. To his surprise, Rikki leaps up as well.

"I'm coming with you."

He doesn't have time to tell her no. And maybe, just maybe, she can help.

Together they run.

It turns out, having Rikki with him was smart. Because when they arrive at the scene, it's chaotic. Skye is immobilized by water, controlled by a smirking woman. There's three others with her, another woman and two men. They all look strange—she is lacking in arms, but has water arms in place of the limbs. The other woman has a third eye on her forehead, from which she's shooting surges of fire. One of the men has long hair and a beard, and it looks like _lava_ is surrounding him, while the other man is bald. He has no weapons, only a long stick that shoots out blasts of air wherever he directs it. The other members of his team are standing there, trying to figure out what to do.

Will nods at Rikki, who immediately gets to work boiling the water off of Skye. The woman with water arms hisses as her arms become shorter, but she draws more water from the ocean.

Will knows he can't use his electricity on her without knocking Skye unconscious, and they'll need her. So instead he focuses on the other three. A team member, Ben, leaps into the air and starts flying. To Will's shock, the bald man jumps into the air after him.

At least now there's only two of them he needs to worry about.

His team snaps into action. Jason begins fighting against the man with lava, using his ability to control stone to divert the heated rock. Ren conjures her razor-sharp ribbons and leaps at the three-eyed woman, effectively distracting her.

"Barb!" he shouts. The girl runs to him. "Can you slow down time around the water?" he asks. Barb nods and holds out a hand. The water-armed woman frowns and then freezes—or rather, appears to. He mentally thanks anyone who might be listening that Barb is on their side.

Now that the water is slowed down, Rikki is able to boil it away faster. Soon, Skye drops to the wooden floor. She sucks in a deep breath before spinning around and focusing her powers on the lava man. He starts to shake, losing his ability to focus on the stones. Will takes this opportunity to zap both him and the water woman into unconsciousness.

Ben flies down at an impossible speed, and Will sees that he's not flying, he's falling. "Barb!" he shouts, but the girl has already reacted. She slows time down around Ben, allowing Will to catch him.

"Watch out," Ben mumbles before passing out. Will glances up and sees the bald man racing towards them, rage on his face.

Jason tries throwing rocks at him, but the bald man evades them easily. Ren is still fighting the three-eyed woman. Will tries to zap her, but she meets his burst of electricity with fire of her own. This results in a huge explosion that gives the bald man cover.

And then it's like all the air has been pulled out of his lungs. Will is suffocating somehow. He sees spots that form the bald man, who is grinning. He can't focus enough to shock the guy.

Will passes out.

When he wakes up, blessed air fills his lungs. He inhales and exhales a few times to make sure, then sits up and surveys the scene. Two of the villains are unconscious, while the three-eyed woman is nowhere to be seen and the bald man is obviously dead. Rikki and Skye are both next to him.

"You okay?" they ask at the same time.

"What happened?" Will counters, without answering the original question.

"Jason threw a rock at the three-eye's head, and then she exploded. And as soon as Barb saw you, she slowed down time around the bald guy while Ren stabbed him. The other two are going to be transported to a safe place," Skye summarizes quickly. "We have to go, though." She looks at Rikki. "You should probably go, too. Otherwise you'll be caught by S.H.I.E.L.D."

Rikki frowns. "I'm not leaving him," she says stubbornly, pointing at Will.

Skye looks the girl in the eyes. "They will run tests on you and find out what you are. You will not be able to leave. You can't let that happen!"

"Why not?" the blonde shoots back.

"Because the world's not ready for mermaids," Will answers, pulling himself up. "Aliens, robots that try to destroy everything? That's fine, but mermaids? Magic? No." He waits a beat before adding, "And Bella wouldn't want you to live this life."

Rikki hates him for using that against her. He can see it in her blue eyes. "I could help," she says coolly.

"No, you'd get in the way." He won't watch another of his old friends die like that. He will protect the mermaids like he always has. "Now, go. Go!"

Without another word, Rikki turns on her heels and runs towards the beach. As he and Skye watch, she dives into the water, graceful as always. They catch a glimpse of the orange tail before it vanishes beneath the waves.

"I still can't believe mermaids are real," Skye mutters. Will laughs.

"Yeah," he agrees, and they get to work.


	7. Epilogues B and C

**A/N: This might be a little confusing. Both of these are technically epilogues—my brain decided to come up with three instead of just one. The first epilogue in this chapter is a simple drabble and alternate ending, where Jiaying lied to Will about the fate of his town. The second one takes place towards the end of the previous epilogue, right before Rikki leaves Will and Skye.**

 **Disclaimer: I own none of these fabulous characters. Or worlds. But man, if I did….**

* * *

 **B**

Will gapes at the blonde girl. He can't help it—he's spent most of his time as an Inhuman believing that his entire previous life was gone. Now, to find out that he had been lied to about it when he's finally accepted it?

Part of him wasn't truly surprised to learn that Jiaying had lied. After everything that happened those three years ago, it fit her character. He didn't understand how he didn't learn the truth sooner, though.

But that's not important. That can be dealt with later. Right now, Rikki is with him. Right now, he can wait.

* * *

 **C**

"I don't care," Rikki growls. "I've been running away from people for too long."

With that, Will knows she will not leave him. A small part of him is relieved. However long ago everything happened, Rikki is still familiar. Being with her brings back memories, both good and bad. He can deal with that. He's stronger now than he was before. And now he has Skye to help.

He stands. "Fine," he says, and he means it. "Welcome to S.H.I.E.L.D, Rikki Chadwick."

She smiles at him before suddenly embracing him in a tight hug. "I missed you," she whispers into his ear.

Will smiles into her shoulder. "Me too," he replies. They eventually split apart, and he grabs Skye's hand. "I guess it's time for a real introduction," he laughs. "Rikki, this is Skye. Skye, Rikki."

Skye holds out her other hand. "I've heard a lot about you," she says with a grin.

"All bad, I bet." Rikki's grinning too, and Will remembers being at the café with the girls while Bella was singing. Rikki had been grinning then, too. It had been a happy time.

He blinks the memory away. Rikki and Skye are chatting like they've always known each other—he's always amused by how easily Skye can become friends with anyone she meets, even someone like Rikki. He doesn't jump into their conversation. He's content to just listen.

The rest of his team is almost done cleaning everything up when S.H.I.E.L.D. arrives to placate the general population. He's not surprised to see Coulson step off the quinjet and head towards them (well, Skye, technically, he supposes).

"Hey," he says with a smile.

"Hey, A.C.," Skye says back. Will adds a "Hey".

"Everything go okay?"

Skye snorts. "Does anything ever?"

Coulson laughs at that comment. Then he seems to notice the new girl standing with them. "Hi."

Will tries not to laugh at Rikki's facial expression. "Hi?" She's hesitant, but for good reason.

"My name's Phil Coulson."

Rikki looks from Coulson to Will back to Coulson. "Are you a secret agent, too?" she blurts.

Will can't help it. He starts laughing, prompting an odd look from Coulson, at least until he starts laughing, too, and then all four of them are standing there, being completely unproductive because they're laughing so hard.

Eventually, they calm down, and more introductions are made. Skye purposely leaves out Rikki being a mermaid, although she mentions the water boiling and fire abilities. She passes it off as a pretty low-level power, and while both Will and Rikki know better, they let Skye do the talking. They don't have to worry about tagging Rikki, fortunately (and Will is so thankful that Skye did away with that system). Instead, Coulson offers Rikki the opportunity to join Skye's team, even though Skye is technically in charge of it.

Rikki is smart and bold, even without her powers. Will knows that she'll be a great part of their team. Skye knows it too, if she remembers all of the stories Will has told her.

Rikki accepts the offer. She and Skye head towards their team's bus, leaving both Will and Coulson to watch them.

"You know that girl, don't you?" Coulson asks.

"Yeah," Will replies. "She'll be a great asset."

Coulson faces Will and puts a hand on his shoulder. "I think so, too. But one thing." He takes off his sunglasses and looks Will in the eyes. "I know Skye well enough to know when she's not telling me everything. I trust her, and I trust you. Don't let me down." Will's seen this look in Coulson's eyes before. It's a warning, one that he accepts readily.

"No, sir."

Coulson pats his shoulder once before leaving him alone. Will shoves his hands into his pockets, mulling over everything that's happened today. He stares out at the ocean, sparkling blue in the afternoon sunlight. Slowly, he reaches up and into his shirt with one hand to pull out the necklace he's always worn, ever since finally admitting everything to Skye. The moon pool crystal sparkles in the light, matching the color of the water.

"Lincoln, you gonna stand there all day or you gonna come with us to grab pizza?" Ben's voice shouts at him from the direction of their bus.

Will tucks the necklace back under his shirt. "I'm coming!" he yells. He takes one final look at the water, admiring it. If he wants to, he can imagine an orange tail coming up and out of the water, like a wave goodbye.

With a small smile, he turns away from the beautiful sight and heads towards the bus, where Skye and Rikki are waiting.


End file.
